This blog is one more tool of Democracy in DiEM25 in the pursuit of a profound democratisation of Diem25. It is open to everyone who is willing to cooperate in the struggle for democracy in Diem25, In Europe and in the world at large.

If we are to be taken seriously we have to include & respond to the justified points of the open letter.

Including the survey & its results & conclusions in the letter?

The way the survey is mentioned right now makes it look like a threat (not the results in themselves are threatening but how it’s formulated).

We’d have to state that it’s not meant to be a threat but that we want to be cooperative

We’d have to mention that we ourselves realise that the survey has flaws & that Judith is right about that.

We’d have to compress the part about the survey.

David proposes to do a deeper analysis of the survey. (Question for David: What would be the value for you of making further analysis of a survey who was already under counter propaganda from Judith? The circumstances since we did the survey have changed a lot. Answer from David: The answers given could still produce useful information.)

Lack of recognition of our “existence” not “contribution”:

We need to be listened to as a group.

The statement of the CC is designed to stop the conversation because they’d have to admit they were wrong otherwise:

But it’s probably not all the CC members that do not want a conversation.

Before the elections are over everything done will be a waste of time.

The CC might change a great deal in the near future.

The open letter sounds like it was written by one person only & probably this person will be gone after the elections.

Would such a letter be a waste of time?

According to Judith every member of the CC gets up to 300 e-mails every day – so maybe our letter would actually get lost.

Maybe instead of sending the letter to the CC we should send a short statement through the coordinators list?

Maybe we should concentrate on thinking long term & try to solve the huge communication breakdown that is happening right now?

We shouldn’t do anything that’s not promising structural change:

So we should push Aral to get the new communications system running

The DiEM Café could be the initiator of a new way of communicating within DiEM25.

> Proposal: Write a humble statement to tell people on the coordinators list (& the members they send it to) that this antagonism is not what we want.

That they can read our blog & our minutes if they want proof, that all we want is to put forward constructive ideas & thoughts, that they are very welcome to join our conversations.

This letter might clear the air between DiD & DSCs & improve these relationships that are very important to communicate, to work & to make proposals that are being heard (like the one on non local DSCs)

It could also state that we don’t want to work for but with the CC, if we mention the CC at all.

We should not fight the battle they want us to fight, but our fight.

Let’s just do our work & gather more & more support not for DiD but to change the structure in DiEM25.

What the CC wants is politics, but we want to save the world J

> Vote: Either drop our letter or rewrite it into a really short one sent to the coordinators list a day or two before the invitation to the DiEM Café. (The survey would drop out of it of course.)

(Comment: The letter was only a proposal, so we don’t have to actually vote on dropping it but we can put it in the minutes that we agree on dropping it.)

>> Agreeing? Yes.

The biggest threat to current leadership is the state of the movement. The toxic atmosphere we are observing is probably only in our imagination, but it got so far that at one point a DSC wanted to exclude DiD from a planned event organisation:

Why don’t we make a survey on how members perceive DiD, if they think it is dangerous, doing the wrong things?

If people think it should be dissolved, it should be dissolved. If people think it should stay it should stay.

Problem: We don’t want to & can’t control who’s filling out the survey – so we cannot be sure that it’s not filled out by a lot of biased people.

Problem: We are probably overestimating the knowledge of members concerning the structure of & groups within DiEM25. Many people might not even know about the existence or role of the CC, DiD, etc. Although we have been able to observe that the knowledge about the existence of DiD increases.

Maybe such a survey would not be a meaningful exercise right now, but maybe after the DiEM Café?

We have to remember that a lot of things can be done without the CC:

Our work is meaningful, the first DiD report in September will be meaningful.

We as DiD should do an assessment of what we can do under the current circumstances & how we can do it. What steps do we plan next?

The DiEM Café of course.

The DiD Report.

Think in earnest about a signature change.

The proposal to amend the OPs concerning non local DSCs.

Concentrate on the CC transparency issue (also OPs).

Stop writing to the CC but go over the VC as is proposed in the OPs.

With new members on the CC we could open up direct connections to them.

Try to counter the pattern of proposal & backlash that we are currently facing.

We could start drafting open letters (e.g. on transparency) that could be put to the DSCs to be signed by them & send to the CC if they approve. That way DiD would only work as a collector of observations, thoughts & ideas. Maybe the planned reports could be such letters?

Get people from outside DiD involved.

Maybe the event in Passau & our cooperation could be of value there.

About the perception of DiD in DiEM25: It would be really good to have a reply to the CCs letter but whether DiD should be banned or dissolved or anything should come from someone outside DiD! Maybe the DSC Hamburg could initiate such a reply?

DSC Hamburg wants to reply, but doesn’t want to comment on DiD directly. But if they mention the idea of non local groups positively this would also include DiD without mentioning it.

It’s definitely total nonsense that the CC should be the only pan-european group.

Should DiD still write a short statement basically saying that DiD does not want to antagonise & fractionise?

To correct misperceptions will be a waste of time – depends on how we do it.

We have to think about the effect any communication can have on people right now.

But we still have to make it crystal clear that we don’t want to be a faction & that we don’t want to antagonise.

Maybe we could publish such a statement on the blog?

> Proposal: To rewrite the letter into a very short statement, that is officially directed to the CC but sent through the coordinators list.

This could be done very fast by deleting parts of the letter & including the invitation to “read our blog, minutes, etc.”.

Maybe it doesn’t have so much impact but we should do it quickly.

Pedrojuán proposes to rewrite it & then put it to an urgent communications procedure

Is this a waste of time? Wouldn’t it be better to put a few lines in the invitation for the Café & ignore this issue opened by the CC?

A reply would be good, because people don’t all know what DiD is about, so they probably would know after this short statement.

> Vote: Rewrite the letter or not?

>> For: 3 Against: 1 Abstained: 1

Pedrojuan will write the letter tomorrow (Wednesday), will put it to vote tomorrow afternoon & will sent it through the coordinators list on Friday!

DiEM Café

Pedrojuán gives a short report about the current state:

Sadly nothing much has happened this last week.

There’s some progress with translations of the webpage.

Most pieces are there but they are not integrated yet.

Would the official trial run on August 12th & the real event on the 26th still be possible? Would a trial run on the 19th be better? The invitations should go out soon & we should do an intern trial run before that – any plan any options?

An internal testing would be really good.

We shouldn’t commit ourselves to dates for the software isn’t finished yet.

No leverage to speed things up – Adam is basically done with the development but has to set up the registration yet & Miguel is on holiday.

But Pedrojuán is convinced that software is so simple that the chances to do the internal testing this week & stay in the plan – including the trial run on the 12th – are very high.

How can we get people for the internal testing? How many would be necessary at least? And how can we get them to join relatively spontaneous?

For full functionality (at least three languages) testing with 15 people is necessary.

We can ask for participants in the general channel in Slack, in our DSCs & beyond.

Tomorrow we can make a decision with Adam & Miguel about the day & time.

Testing would probably take an hour.

We could do it Thursday, Friday or Saturday evening – most probably Saturday – which would limit the aspect of spontaneity.

Task for all of us: Find people to join the testing!

Connection to Adam & Miguel (Pedrojuán isn’t here this weekend): Adam is the one who’s going to integrate everything so he will be the main contact & he’s on Slack & on Mastodon.

Should we schedule a short DiD meeting with both of them on Thursday evening?

Pedrojuán is trying to organise that.

Content proposal for DiD Report

If we are going to make a report we should think of its content: So it would be beneficial to talk about that now & in principal, start brainstorming & circulating ideas, fill the content folder with ideas, sleep on them, consider them:

What is the role of the volunteer coordinator?

If someone makes a decision how can you contest it?

If you think there’s unfairness who do you go to?

What about the separation of powers in DiEM25?

What needs to happen in DiEM25 to change the current structure?

What is an active member? Who are the active members?

What is meant by formulating the referendum?

How do campaigns get started in DiEM25?

Maybe the current pad is not very inviting?

There could be an invitation like: “If you want to contribute just start writing in the specific pad!”

And maybe we should start by writing initial comments to start the process.

Also it could be announced a second time in the general channel-

> Vote: Should Philipp rewrite the index pad to be more inviting & put another announcement on the general channel?

>> For: 5

Any other business

Rotation of three e-mail jobs that have been done by Pedrojuán & Wessel until now:

calling up for meetings

follow up of meetings

send out any proposals to the members

Taking a rotation is certainly the best idea. Maybe we should set up a calendar to know when to do what? Maybe in our Google mail account? Better still: We can do it directly in the meetings or on the blog for e.g. the next two months.